


Robot Lions are Better Than People

by phoenixyfriend



Series: Let It the Quiznak Go [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, Black Paladin Allura (Voltron), Ever tried to lick a metal pole in the winter and then gotten your tongue stuck?, Frozen (2013) References, He wasn't impressed, Ice Planet, Ice Powers, M/M, Mentions of Enlightenment Era Philosophers, Mentions of Toy Story, Rescue Missions, Star Wars References, That happened to Keith only the pole was Lance's dick, mentions of oral sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2018-10-15 01:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10547882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: The Black Lion was pushing for them to focus on a particular distress beacon, and unsurprisingly, they found Shiro on a planet that was little more than ice and stone. Unconscious and possibly being experimented on, sure, but they found him. They had Shiro back.He's... missed a lot."Lance haswhat?"





	1. Finding Shiro

**Author's Note:**

> One of several planned sequels to "Do You Wanna Build a Voltron?" You should read that first to make sense of what's going on with Lance.
> 
> This probably won't be more than two or three chapters, depending on how the next few scenes unravel. It's mostly just Shiro being confused and Lotor being... uh... evil and flirty without actually being a creeper, I guess?

It started with a distress beacon.

“There’s a prison down there,” Pidge said, looking over the information they had. “But it’s a pretty small one, considering what we’ve seen at other Galra mining facilities.”

“Should be pretty easy to fix the situation then, right?” Lance asked. “Or is it one of those ‘it looks easy but haha you’re screwed’ situations?”

Pidge shrugged. “Too many people for anything other than the castle ship to pick up in just one trip, and the castle can’t do that because it’s basically planet Hoth down there, plus Galra defenses and hurricane-level winds.”

Allura gestured silently for her to elaborate.

“Temperatures way below freezing, constant snow or hail on a planet-wide basis, barely any visible stone or other parts of the crust because it’s all covered in ice, and basically incapable of sustaining life on the surface without outside support,” Pidge summarized. “We could probably handle the environment, or the defenses, but both at once is just… not gonna happen.”

“So we’re definitely sending Lance, no matter what the plan is.” Keith tapped fingers against his armor, frowning. “Allura? Why are we focusing on this signal?”

Allura looked to the side, practically projecting discomfort. “The Black Lion is pushing me to focus on it. I assume she may have more information than she is letting on.”

There was a momentary silence, and then everyone leaned in.

“So, what are we working with here?” Hunk asked.

o.o.o.o.o

Keith pulled back on the Red Lion’s controls, easing down through the atmosphere with more difficulty than he liked to admit.

“Lance? How’re you holding up?” He asked through gritted teeth. He couldn’t feel the winds through Red’s hull, of course, but there was a certain degree of shared perception that meant he could feel the phantom pains that the lion herself was experiencing.

“Better than you are, I’m guessing.” There wasn’t smugness in the words the way there might have been, once upon a time. “Red isn’t really made for ice planets, so you’re probably…”

“The path to the Blade of Marmora headquarters is really more my style,” Keith acknowledged. “Hunk?”

“…middling? I don’t know, I don’t think I’m doing too bad. I mean, Yellow has a pretty big surface area and all that, so the wind’s hitting me pretty hard, but he’s the heaviest so it’s not doing too much.” Hunk unfortunately punctuated that sentence with a slightly pained grunt. “Okay, so, could be doing better. Still okay, though.”

“I’m sending you three the coordinates now,” Pidge said, and Keith watched as the information filtered through. They were still a few miles off, but nothing too bad. “You have five minutes before their sensors come back online.”

“Remember, paladins,” Allura said, “Get in, shut down the defenses, and get out.”

“No point in freeing the prisoners if we can’t get them off of Hoth, got it.” Lance laughed.

“I appreciate the attempt at maintaining morale, but focus is more important right now!” Coran admonished him. “And the planet has a name of its own!”

“Does anyone actually use it? Or is it just a random letter-number combination since there aren’t any sentient lifeforms other than the prisoners that the Galra dump here for the mines?” Hunk asked, sounding genuinely curious.

The silence was telling.

“Right, I’m going to keep calling it Hoth,” Lance said. “Also, coming in for a landing. Pidge, thank you again for the camouflage tech.”

“No problem, memelord,” Pidge said. “Keith, Hunk, how are you holding up?”

“Could be better,” Keith admitted. “The cold is getting in a bit more than expected, considering we spend our days out in _space_.”

“Yeah, well, tell me if there’s an actual mechanical problem. Or tell Hunk.”

“We’re actually ditching the lions now,” Lance said, which was true. They’d landed already, after all. “We’ll check in after we get a better idea of what we’re doing.”

“That’s not reassuring, Lance.”

“I promise we’ll do our best, Princess,” he replied, and Keith could hear the grin in it, the one that Lance wore when he was trying to reassure people that things were fine enough to joke around.

Greeeeeeeeeat.

o.o.o.o.o

Hunk was not having a good day.

This wasn’t exactly abnormal, as he had had very few truly good days since coming to space, given that his job was now ‘fight aliens in a giant robot cat.’ A decent number of okay days, where there weren’t any battles but training still left him sore, and even some days that were better than average when they touched down on a planet and he could get new ingredients for the kitchen and new parts for his projects.

But truly good days were few and far between, and this was not shaping up to be a good day. This wasn’t even shaping up to be an okay day. This was shaping up to be the kind of day that took him to the cleaners and then didn’t even hang him out to dry.

“I’m pinned down!” He shouted, hoping that the defenses hadn’t somehow knocked out communications as well.

“Hold on, buddy,” Lance said, a little quieter than expected. Probably maneuvering himself into a better shooting position without attracting attention, Hunk figured.

“Can we get backup down here?” Hunk asked.

“Looks like that’s going to be a big fat ‘No,’ Hunk. Sorry.” Pidge’s voice was strained. “In related news, do you think any of you are in a position that would let you get back to your lions?”

“…Pidge?”

“Yeah, we’ve got a Galra battlecruiser up here,” Pidge practically hissed the words, and the sound of rushing air crackled through the comm link. “Some of the fighters might be trying to head for the prison. I’m thinking that we’re going to need at least three lions in the air.”

“Paladins…” Allura finally joined the conversation. “Please tell me there’s good news. Pidge is right, so I could very much use another one of you up here now.”

“Well, I might be able to get Hunk free to move?” Lance said lightly. “Not sure if he should be getting out or helping us out here. He’s the best we’ve got on the ground for shutting down the defenses. Keith and I don’t know what we’re doing.”

“We need you down on the ground, Lance,” Allura grunted, and Hunk figured that she’d probably just dropped into the Black Lion’s cockpit. “Keith? Can you get into the air?”

“I’m all the way in the center, so probably not,” Keith was breathing heavily, a noise that cut off between sentences like he was fiddling with his mic so that they wouldn’t hear how tired he was. “It would take me a lot of time to get out of here.”

“Alright.” Allura hissed out a breath as she presumably dodged a shot in Black. “Pidge, Hunk, you two are going to talk Lance through whatever you need at the base. Coran can take over when you’re focused on the fighting. I’ll attempt to contact the Blade of Marmora. Hunk, get out here. Lance, join Keith if you can, and try to destroy as much of the base as you can without hurting the prisoners. Keith, what are you doing right now?”

“…Um.”

“ _Keith_ ,” Allura demanded.

“Guys, I think I found Shiro.”

o.o.o.o.o

Keith had no idea what to do.

Shiro was in a… a giant fucking test tube. Or something. It was a big glass cylinder filled with some kind of blue fluid, with a bunch of wires and tubes going in to attach to Shiro’s body at various points. Keith was sure he could get Shiro out, but less certain of whether he could do it safely. This would also require actually reaching the tube, something he wasn’t sure he could pull off, given the dark grid of metal bars that cut off Shiro’s cell from the hallway. Why they needed cell bars on a guy in a _test tube_ , Keith didn’t know, but they provided another obstacle that his _bayard. Wasn’t. Cutting through._

At least they’d let him keep his undercut and eyeliner, a slightly hysterical part of Keith’s mind commented. At least they let the poor man keep his aesthetic. Somehow.

“I’m gonna need some help down here,” he said, cutting off whoever had last been speaking. “I have no idea how to get him out of this thing without hurting him.”

“Can you get me a visual?” Coran asked.

Keith reached up and activated the camera function on his helmet. “That work?”

“Oh dear. Yes, that’s… going to be difficult. Can you get the through the bars?”

“I’m _trying_ ,” Keith said, and proceeded to zone out a little as he tried to slice through the cell bars again. His wrist felt like it was about to fall off. “But they’re too strong for my bayard, and they aren’t automated in any way, so unless I have a key or something, I’m screwed and so is he.”

“Red does fire, right?” Pidge asked, and then didn’t wait for an answer. “Think that could help?”

“I’m not _Lance_ ,” Keith scoffed. “I didn’t just wake up with superpowers one day. I can’t just… melt the fucking bars.”

“Yeah, but maybe your bayard can,” Pidge ignored his tone, still focusing. “Like, they’re meant to suit the paladin or whatever, right? And we know based on previous paladins that one bayard can have multiple forms for a single person, once they’ve trained it up. So just… see if you can get a lightsaber or something else that might be able to slice through.”

 _Great advice_ , Keith thought, not a little sarcastically. Awesome, time to see if he could save his best friend/pseudo-older brother from the Galra. Again. Or, well, he’d freed Shiro before, but not from the Galra. And Shiro had been captured by the Galra before, but he hadn’t been saved by Keith. And—he was getting off-topic.

Red. He had to talk to Red.

He closed his eyes and deactivated his bayard. He tried to ignore the distant sounds of screaming and explosions, and the nearer sounds that were dripping fluids and humming machinery, keeping up only the minimum awareness to make sure he wasn’t going to get attacked while his back was turned.

_Red?_

An acknowledgement. Anxious to get back into the fight, impatient, like she’d be shifting her weight while on her toes if she were more organic.

_I’m not going to ask you to do something like what Blue did for Lance,_

A sensation akin to scoffing.

_But is there any way you could help augment my bayard to help save Shiro?_

Contemplation. Consideration. Plucking of information from Keith’s head to see more details on the situation.

Agreement.

_Thanks._

The telepathic lion equivalent of an eye-roll and shooing motion.

“Alright,” he said, opening his eyes and activating his bayard again. It looked mostly the same, but there was a button on the hilt that he was itching to press. “Let’s see if this works.”

And it did. Red purred in the back of his head as the bayard glowed, the ridiculously hot blade cutting through the bars like soft butter. A few bars cut through above head height, and again near the floor, and then just… _push_ , and they fell out. Sure, he had to dodge the falling glops of molten metal, but they cooled down pretty quickly, and with enough spare room for him to get through easily.

“Okay, I’m through the bars. How do I get him out of the tube thing safely?”

“I recognize the systems,” Coran said, and something in Keith’s chest eased. “Kolivan’s records had… never mind. I’ll walk you through it.”

“Understood.”

So Keith got to work.

o.o.o.o.o

Lance cursed internally as he pressed up against a wall, breathing heavily. Hopefully, the mask was going to hide the noise of his gasping for as long as it took for the Galra to go past.

“Lance? You okay?” Pidge asked.

“Might have a hairline fracture in my ribs,” Lance whispered. “Definitely feels like one, at least.”

“Shit,” Pidge hissed. “Allura? Orders?”

“Steady on, we don’t have any other options right now. Lance, focus on regrouping with Keith for now. If you get more injured, fall back to Blue and join us in the air. Avoid fights if you can; we’re dropping the mission to down their defenses in favor of grabbing Shiro and getting out.” Allura’s voice stuttered a bit, presumably as inertia jolted her body during the fight in the air. “We need Voltron out here.”

“We can handle a single warship without Voltron by now,” Hunk said. “Why is this so much harder than usu—”

“Lotor’s here.”

Coran’s voice cut through the conversation, and Lance would have called it a complete silence if not for the sounds of ongoing battle.

“ _Lance_ ,” Allura said, and just left it at that.

“I know,” he replied, because there wasn’t anything else to say. “Is stalling him an option?”

“Not really,” Allura said. “We can hold the line for a little longer, but you two need to _hurry.”_

o.o.o.o.o

“We’ve got a problem.”

Keith jolted in place, trying not to let Shiro slip from over his shoulder. He wasn’t exactly _heavy_ , and Keith was carrying him exactly as he had when breaking out from the Garrison, but he was still covered in whatever blue gunk had been in the tube.

Lance ran into the room and slipped under Shiro’s other arm.

“Déjà vu?” Keith asked, heading for the door.

“Haha, cute. No, but seriously, we’ve got a real problem.”

“I heard that Lotor’s here. And there’s a battle going on that we’re not there for. And you’ve got a cracked rib. That’s more than a single problem, Lance!”

“I heard some soldiers talking about a self-destruct sequence.”

Keith was silent for a moment, mulling that over.

“Yeah, we need to hurry.”

“You get Shiro, I’ll get the rest of the prisoners?” Lance asked, readjusting Shiro over his shoulder. “Or do we have a better plan?”

“My sword can turn into, like… some superheated blade, now.” Keith glanced down at his bayard. “It cut through the bars.”

“How fast?”

“It took two or three minutes to get through to Shiro. You got something better?”

“Metal gets brittle when it’s cold,” Lance said frankly. “And that normally wouldn’t be enough, but if I shoot it with my bayard right after… or if you hit it with your sword…”

“Yeah, let’s try your way first.” Keith brought up the map of the facility, checking the points that Pidge had marked off earlier. “Allura’s going to be pissed that we disobeyed orders.”

“Yeah, well, she gave those orders before we knew that the place was about to come down around our ears,” Lance muttered. “Unless you want to ask permission anyway?”

Keith considered that. “We probably should.”

“…do you _want_ to?”

“It was your plan,” Keith said as mildly as he could.

“Fuck you.”

“Already did, seven out of ten. I’ve had better.”

“Ex _cuse_ me? A seven? I’m at _least_ an eight and a half!”

Keith hid a grin behind the collar of his armor. “Just call Allura, hotshot.”

“Ugh, fine. But see if I ever go to _you_ for a one-night stand again.”

“Wouldn’t say yes if you did.”

“You _fucker_.”

“Call the Princess and tell her what’s going on.”

Keith focused back in on navigating down towards the cells that held the actual mining slaves, rather than experimental subjects. Shiro had been the only one up in the science division, which Keith found suspicious, but not enough to bother worrying at the moment. Coran would have said something if it were an issue.

“—but _only_ because the building is about to be destroyed!”

“Yes, Princess. Thank you, Princess. We’ll follow orders just like you said, Princess.” Lance’s voice teetered the edge between respect and laughter.

“Stop getting yourselves into ridiculous situations,” Allura ordered.

“It’s not _our_ fault our missions tend to end weirdly,” Lance muttered. “See you soon-ish?”

“You have about thirteen and a half minutes until the place goes boom,” Pidge told them. “I can’t delay it any more than that, and Lotor’s already trying to contact us in hopes of talking to you.”

“I refuse to take responsibility for his crush on me.”

“Less than twelve minutes, Lance.”

“Roger.”

Keith waited until the comms were turned off again. “So, plan?”

“We don’t have enough room on the lions, so we’re going to take everyone a few miles out as fast as we can and I’ll construct a shelter. We’re both tight enough with our lions for them to follow along without us piloting directly, so they can get there and provide an extra shield against the wind once we’re out in the wind and snow.”

“Think you can pull it off?”

“I mean… probably. Having Blue nearby will help.” Lance bit his lip, considering. “Best option we have, though.”

“Unfortunate.”

“Almost as unfortunate as your hair.”

“Fuck you, Lance.”

“You did. Six out of ten, would not do again.”

“You quiznacking liar,” Keith laughed.

They made it to the cells without any further discussion, the grimness of the situation digging in as they got to the doors. Lance parsed the lock through to Pidge, and they waited for the buzz of the door.

“Lean Shiro against a wall and find him a blanket while I’m freezing things,” Lance suggested.

Keith nodded as the door opened. “And then I can stab the cell bars.”

“Yeeeup, and keep an eye on the time for me,” Lance said, and stepped into the prison area, holstering his bayard. “Hello, everyone! My friend here and I are paladins of Voltron. We’re here to set you free. Unfortunately, someone set up a self-destruct mechanism, so we can’t do this the safe way since we’re on a time limit, so I’m going to need you all to step back from the bars.”

“Prove it!”

“Time limit, my dude!” Lance shouted back. “Just stand back!”

There was grumbling, unsurprisingly, but the prisoners did stand back. Keith was already over at what looks like a closet, cutting off the lock with his Marmora blade so he could dig through—bingo. Blankets and towels. A few spare uniforms. Hopefully they’d drag excess fluids to the surface and away from the body like the bodysuits did. Granted, the bodysuits were made for getting rid of sweat and reacted differently to blood, but at the moment, Keith was only concerned about getting Shiro as dry as possible before they ended up outside.

Lance, meanwhile, was focusing. Keith didn’t actually know much about quintessence beyond what little was required for his Galra transformation and activating his blade, but he’d listened in on Allura and Lance’s lessons a few times. Lance was probably standing there with his eyes closed to circulate his quintessence the way he always did when he was planning on anything other than shooting.

Keith turned around just in time to catch the sight of Lance opening his eyes, the shape of them almost obscured with how they were glowing like a beacon. He lifted his arms as high as he could, hands arched down like a puppet master, and dropped to his knees to slam his hands against the ground. A wave of ice traveled outwards from the point of impact, crawling up the bars of every cell in sight. Keith could barely hear the frightened gasps of the prisoner-slaves over the ominous creaking of the metal.

Lance didn’t get up, and his eyes didn’t stop glowing. Keith frowned, dropping the pile of fabric on the floor next to Shiro (and he’d have to get him drier _soon_ , given how much the temperature in the room had already dropped), and walked over to Lance.

“Dude,” he said, putting a hand on Lance’s shoulder. “They’re already iced over.”

“They’re made for a hostile, low-temperature environment, and have a lower barrier between brittleness and ductility as a result,” Lance breathed out; he’d have sounded almost ethereal if not for the fact that he was clearly quoting a lesson from one of the other team members. “Gotta get them as cold as possible to overcome that.”

“Time limit,” was all Keith said, going over to Shiro and starting to strip him. Wet clothes off, then towel-drying, then dry clothes, then blankets. It was a bit weird to be manhandling his unconscious older brother figure like this, but… well. There was “you changed me while I was asleep for no reason” and then there was “you changed me while I was asleep because I was going to freeze to death if you didn’t,” and Keith was pretty sure the second one was in the clear, morally.

After another twenty seconds, Lance came over, apparently finished. “I’ll do that for you. You start whacking things with a stick.”

“My bayard isn’t a _stick_ , Lance.”

“Go hit things with a sharper, pointier thing to break them.”

Keith rolled his eyes, but hurried to follow the plan.

He activated his bayard, swung at the first set of bars, and flinched a little at how easily they broke compared to Shiro’s cell upstairs. He shook himself out of his stupor and helped out the aliens that had been inside. He started talking as he moved on to the next cell, refusing to waste time by stopping to talk instead of working while he did so.

“Grab a broom or something else that’s sturdy, and start breaking the other cells. The faster we get this done, the faster we get out, and the more likely we are to all survive.”

And with a compounding labor force like that, they _did_ manage to get everyone free fairly quickly. By that point, Lance had finished cleaning and changing Shiro, and they got back to their earlier position of having Shiro supported between the two of them as they went through the halls, this time heading for an exit with a crowd of aliens behind them.

“If I may?”

Keith turned to look over his shoulder at the voice. Deep but feminine, at least by human standards, and apparently belonging to an alien that was some eight or nine feet tall, covered in grey-green skin, and built like a brick shit house. The alien gestured at Shiro.

“You healthy enough for it?” Keith asked, knowing what the Galra’s slave-prison conditions could be like.

“Yes.”

Keith shared a look with Lance, and then nodded and passed Shiro off to the large alien. “Thanks. This’ll save us time.”

“We won’t have immediate transportation available once we’re outside,” Lance said, apparently deciding it was time for everyone to hear the plan. “And there’s a battle going on outside of atmo, so we’re going to get clear of the explosion radius, set up a temporary shelter, and come down for you once the battle’s over. It won’t be comfortable, and you’ll probably have to huddle for warmth or something, but at least you won’t be dying in the blast.”

“I mean, we still could,” Keith said. “We’re kind of running out of time.”

“So fucking _sprint_ , jackass!” Lance yelled, taking off at the highest speed possible. “You were the one that was supposed to be keeping track of the time!”

“I got a little caught up in the smashing!”

“You’re not the freaking Hulk!”

Keith thought he heard someone mutter ‘and these are the paladins meant to be saving the universe from the Galra?’ behind them, but magnanimously chose to ignore the person. They were coming up on the exit anyway.

“Do we have time to hack this or—”

“Hold this,” the alien from before said, handing Shiro back to Keith, bridal style. Then they dropped one shoulder and charged for the door.

It came clean off its hinges.

“…or that, that’s definitely an option, that works, that was good,” Lance babbled. “Okay, let’s go before this place decides to blow!”

He took off running again, activating his own faceguard and gesturing for everyone to follow him out into the freezing, minimally visible wasteland.

Keith took a breath to steel himself and flinched as the large alien took Shiro again. They nodded down at him. “After you, paladin.”

“What an honor,” Keith muttered, but activated his faceguard and started running.

Everyone followed.


	2. Flirting with Lotor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lance has a job and is far more accepting of it than he maybe should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have a thing I finished instead of writing my final essay.

They made it only a few hundred yards before the building, massive as it was, exploded. The shockwave blasted all but a handful of them off their feet, but Red and Blue were there to take the brunt of it.

“Well, I guess that’s a sign to set up camp.” Lance winced as he got to his feet. Ow. That had definitely bruised something.

“You need us to get out of the way or something?” Keith asked, eyes focused on the horizon. Lance followed his gaze.

One of the binary stars of the planet’s system was already visible, but he could see the other following its twin into the sky. Granted, they were far enough away that the stars only ever cast a weak, faintly greyish light on the planet and projected minimal warmth, but at least there’d be a little more visibility soon, with two suns instead of one.

“Yeah, that would help,” Lance said, hands on his hips as he turned to stare at the ground, chewing his lip. The ground was relatively flat here, at least. He could work with that, even if the wind was howling something fierce. At least there wasn’t any snow to obscure his sightlines. “Um… I’m gonna do the thing.”

“Just use the speakers in your helmet,” Keith said, shrugging.

Lance rolled his eyes, but he understood the request.

He took up his usual stance, feet shoulder-width apart and chin down, hands down a few inches from his sides with the palms facing forward.

Blue pushed the song into his head, gently, and as helpful as she could be.

“Fast-forward, beautiful, we’re on the clock.”

A sensation of laughter, faint and amused, but the she obliged, speeding through the song in a way that still let the emotion build up instead of _feeling_ like a fast-forward. It made sense, Lance figured, since the song was all mental on his part.

He circulated quintessence for those seconds, letting the power swell inside him, and then clenched his jaw and lifted one knee just in time to match Elsa’s stomp onto the ground, laying out a flat layer of ice over the ground.

His hands clenched into fists with his focus, yanking upwards to pull columns into being, a slow spin to add in thick walls that would be able to withstand the winds even without Red and Blue providing a shield of some sort. Bring the arms in and focus on creating a roof, and…

Lance opened his eyes and looked around, clicking his tongue. Well, it wasn’t exactly Elsa’s ice castle, but it would do.

There were only two sets of doors, but the larger set opened up as Keith led the former prisoners in. Lance had made the building spacious to accommodate the wide variety and sheer quantity of prisoners that they’d freed, but as they filed in, he got the feeling it wasn’t enough.

Well, okay then. He could improvise.

“Lance?” Keith came up to him, the large alien carrying Shiro just a step behind. “It doesn’t look like this place is going to be big enough for everyone.”

“Yeah, I know.” Lance tapped a foot against the floor. “Okay, I think I can maybe… do this?”

He made a yanking motion, focusing on the walls, and a long balcony grew out at the second story level, not quite making a new ceiling. It was wide enough to help, though, a strip of a good dozen or so feet extending all the way around with a railing, and Lance pulled a sweeping entry staircase into being on the end of the hall opposite to the main door that everyone was coming in through.

“Is now really the time to be getting artsy?” Keith asked.

“Not artsy, just…” Lance wasn’t sure how to put it. “Obstructing sight lines to the back door.”

“What are we going to do if he makes it down here?” Keith muttered, apparently understanding _exactly_ why Lance wanted to obscure sight lines.

“Add in another building to the back, put in mirror walls and shiny ice that makes this look like some Disney-ass aesthetic disaster, hide everyone except for myself behind all the shiny, reflective surfaces, sneak ‘em out the back to the second building, and just… distract him myself.”

“You’re not disappointed to be playing distraction?”

“Honestly? I’m mostly still confused.” Lance trailed out the back door that was now hidden behind the staircase, back out into the wind that everyone else was probably feeling as a biting, freezing, bone-deep cold. He pulled up more walls and another roof, then another set of balconies, two exits from this secondary building to the outdoors. Satisfied with the structure, he carved a hole into the wall to act as a doorway from one building’s balcony to the other’s, so nobody would have to switch levels while fleeing, if necessary.

He probably needed more stairs.

Lance had only just managed to add two sets when a commotion came from behind. He rushed back in to find Keith with his sword on fire in the middle of the room.

Lance made a helpless, questioning gesture with both arms.

“They said they were cold,” Keith said, in explanation.

“So you set your bayard on fire.”

“My bayard has a fire form now. Red is helping.”

‘My lion is helping’ was code for many things, ever since Blue’s decision to turn Lance into a Disney princess.

“Right. Whatever. I’ll just—”

“Lance!” Allura’s voice came over the comm link. Lance and Keith’s hands both flew up to their helmets. “Lotor’s broken through our barrier, and he’s headed straight for you!”

Lance and Keith shared a look.

“Should I stall or what?” Lance asked. “Seriously, I’ve got at least a couple dozen aliens here, possibly well over a hundred. You know none of us can fight Lotor one on one, and why I’d prefer to keep him… amiable.”

“Stall, yes,” Allura sighed. “Do what you can to keep him from hurting anyone, try not to engage otherwise. Shiro?”

“Safe, as much as he can be in a frozen wasteland,” Keith answered.

“Alright, everyone!” Lance yelled, clapping his hands to get what little attention wasn’t on him already. “I’m going to put up some mirrors and shit; either hide behind them or go to the other building that I just put up! Try not to stay in sight of the main doors, basically. Ready? Okay, let’s go!”

He started pulling up walls and mirrors even as he spoke, creating a false inner wall that stood even with the balcony, creating a crawl space of sorts beneath it. It was as shiny and reflective as Lance could make it. “Keith, keep Shiro with you if you can, but I want you up on the balcony, behind the railing that’s going to block off the top of the stairs.”

“You have a plan?”

“Don’t I always?”

“…you didn’t have a plan ready for when my tongue got stuck while—”

“ _Oh my god, Keith, stop bringing that up.”_

“Never,” Keith promised, even as he climbed the stairs.

o.o.o.o.o

It was kind of beautiful, Lance mused. The ice was jagged and sharp and deadly, but most of all, it was beautiful.

His ice throne was pretty uncomfortable, but he stayed slouched sideways and posing, waiting for the tell-tale hum of Lotor’s ship. He knew he was being as dramatic and as extra as possible, but when dealing with Lotor, one could never have enough of either.

(Drag the prince to see RuPaul’s Drag Race, sometime. Sounded like fun.)

And there was the hum, just barely audible over the wind, and disappearing almost immediately. He doubted he’d have heard it at all if he weren’t focusing so hard, or so attuned to this environment.

Lotor knocked on the door, and Lance…

_Dramatic, extra, bitch._

He made a pulling motion with his hand, and the ice doors seemingly opened on their own.

Lotor strode forward, ignoring the ice mirrors around him, the cracked and shattered pieces, the paper-thin slices, the stalactite spears jutting out from the walls and floors. The drones and handful of soldiers that followed him in and took up the perimeter were less composed.

“Blue Paladin. How lovely to see you again.”

“I’d love to say the same back,” Lance drawled, “And I can, in fact, say that _seeing_ your face is as lovely as ever, but the fact that you’re here at all is… harshing my mellow.”

One perfectly plucked white eyebrow climbed higher. “Your mellow.”

“Yes.”

“It’s being… harshed?”

“Totally.”

“You are a very strange entity, Lance.”

“Ooooh, first name basis? How cute.” Lance swung his legs around so that he was sitting properly, leaning forward and grinning. “Come now, Lotor, do you really think we’re that close?”

“Would you prefer I continue to refer to you by your species or role as paladin?” Lotor took a step forward, but it was a meandering, considering motion. His head fell to one side, lips in a pout. “And here I was, thinking we had something special.”

“Nuh-uh, you don’t get to quote my own words back at me. It’s rude.” Lance clicked his tongue disapprovingly, standing up and gazing down at Lotor from the top of the steps. “Or are you saying you’d actually like to get… _closer_.”

He brought a finger up to trace along his own lower lip in a very, very suggestive manner as he tilted his head, letting his gaze trace up and down Lotor’s form to get his meaning across.

Lance was very much not prepared for Keith to shout from some concealed place and distract the entire conversation, but he didn’t mind all that much. It helped provide a direction, if a rather awkward one, for the dialogue to take.

o.o.o.o.o

Keith was hiding behind the railing on the balcony, Shiro in his arms. He watched the scene below through a crack in the ‘paneling’ that somehow managed to be opaque despite being made of _ice_. It meant he could keep an eye on Lance as Lotor entered the building, and have a feed going to Allura to make sure she knew if they needed an immediate extraction.

Shiro shifted in his arms, and Keith dropped a hand to cover Shiro’s mouth when he started to groan in discomfort.

Bleary eyes blinked open to look at him, then widened in shock. Keith had a bit of trouble keeping Shiro from thrashing, and only kept him from hitting the wall or floor and making noise by letting the large alien from before pick Shiro’s legs up from the balcony floor.

Keith put a finger to his lips and widened his eyes imploringly.

Shiro calmed down, though his eyes were still wide, and his breath was coming in short, shallow spurts.

 _What’s happening_ , he mouthed.

Keith made a face. _Complicated_.

It was the most he could do without alerting Lotor to the fact that they’d gotten Shiro out.

He turned back to the crack, because Lance needed backup, no matter his bravado.

“—or are you saying you’d actually like to get… _closer_.”

There was a long moment where Lotor seemed to be sizing Lance up, a growing smile, which… well, it wasn’t the first time the flirting had progressed so quickly, or gone so directly to something sexual. Keith knew Lance’s own weird feelings on the subject, though, and knew that they had to stall more than anything, so he had to step in.

“I wouldn’t suggest it!” He called down. “Getting too close tends to make things uncomfortable.”

“Speaking from experience?” Lotor drawled, not even sounding surprised.

“Ever seen someone try to lick cold metal and get their tongue stuck?” Keith asked. He tried to avoid Shiro’s eyes.

“I have,” Lotor deigned to answer.

“Oh my _god_ , Keith,” Lance whined, dramatic as always. “It was an accident! Let it go!”

Keith stifled a snort. “Ice dick.”

“You didn’t even _stop!_ ” Lance protested. “I mean, you paused after we got you detached or whatever, but you just—”

“It was still a somewhat traumatizing experience,” Keith insisted, holding back a laugh.

“Excuse me,” Lotor said, interrupting. “I don’t think I’m following.”

“Keith tried to give me a blowjob but got his tongue stuck to my dick because my body’s been doing weird shit with temperature.”

“There wasn’t a more tactful way you could have put that?” Keith asked.

“Your ‘tact’ was to just say ‘ice dick.’ You have no room to talk.” Lance said, with a pout that was just barely visible from this angle.

Keith felt a tapping on his arm and looked down to see Shiro looking at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. _What the hell is going on?_ those eyes asked.

Keith didn’t really have a way to answer. So he just mouthed _It’s really fucking complicated._

Shiro frowned.

Turning back to the crack he’d been watching through, Keith found Lance and Lotor circling each other, still making small talk.

(Keith had been _right_ , though, and Lance would admit it one day. A condom _had_ removed the weird-ass sticking problem, even when Lance’s temperature had kept dipping at random.)

o.o.o.o.o

“Such pretty eyes,” Lotor said, a laugh in his own.

“Yeah, I’m sure they’d make great martini olives or something,” Lance said, waving a hand dismissively. “Anyway, I—”

“Great what?” Lotor paused in his movements, and while the air of classy, confident calm that surrounded him didn’t waver, there was a hint of genuine confusion in his voice.

“It was a bad joke. Like, really bad. Don’t worry about it.” Lance took a step closer, smiling softly. “You always have such pretty hair…”

“Oh?”

“Such a shame, really.” He sighed and turned away, meandering over towards the wall. “Such a beautiful man, and yet…”

“Is this your constant lament that we are enemies, paladin?” Lotor asked, and Lance could hear the amusement in his tone without even turning around.

“Really more disappointment that such a pretty face and clever mind are wasted on someone with such awful ideals,” Lance said. He turned to look at Lotor again; he didn’t seem insulted, at least. Good. “Wouldn’t you prefer to be on the side of the good guys?”

“You have yet to convince me of why I should, or even convince me of why you _are_ the supposed ‘good guys,’” Lotor actually brought his hands up to do finger quotes.

“Ah, you remembered!” Lance clapped, smiling. “Finger quotes, always lovely. You learned them faster than Keith did.”

“Fuck you, Lance!”

“You did, asshole!” Lance didn’t look away from Lotor, even as he shouted back at Keith. “Really, though. Do a little research on philosophies _other_ than whatever you learn with the Galra. Maybe a little Locke or Kant could do you some good. Rousseau or Descartes, maybe. Robespierre, even! Hell, I’m sure you could learn plenty about empathy for people of other species and such from just good old children’s movies; Barbie’s definitely got a handle on politics and ethics in Toy Story 3.”

Lotor’s eyebrow rose. “A children’s movie.”

Lance grinned. “As the character said, ‘Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force!’ Pretty neat summation of some fairly complex concepts, don’t you think?”

Lotor said nothing, just frowned. The drones and soldiers, thus far mostly silent and still, shifted awkwardly and gripped their weapons.

Thinking quickly, Lance clicked his tongue. “Hey, now, what’s that face for? It’d be a shame to ruin such beautiful skin with wrinkles.”

Lotor’s brow smoothed out, mouth returning to its previous mocking smile. “You think me a fool?”

“Pffft, as if.” Lance took a step closer, arms folded over his chest. “Close-minded, perhaps. Limited, maybe, in your access to philosophies your father didn’t approve of. Sheltered, if in a particularly murderous and evil way.”

“My father’s empire was built on the bones of our enemies, paladin.” Lotor’s voice was quiet, but nonetheless cut through Lance’s thoughts easily. Shit. “And it stands strong even with him out of commission. Would you call that weak?”

“Everything ends sometime. Whether tomorrow or in ten thousand years, everything ends.” Lance scrambled for the right words. “And when it does, how will people remember the Galra Empire? With gratefulness or disgust?”

Lotor took a step closer to Lance, and Lance had to will himself not to take a step back.

“There were plenty of empires in my planet's history,” Lance breathed, watching as half-Galra, half-Altean eyes came ever-closer. “All of them thought they’d last forever. All of them fell eventually. There are some we remember with hate and some we remember with thanks, and some that we barely remember at all. So… how do you want people to remember you, Lotor? Tyrant or liberator?”

“Why should I care?” Lotor was close enough that Lance could feel his breath when he spoke.

“Because you know as well as I do that we’re all just stories in the end,” Lance said, and mentally cursed himself for making _references_ at a time like this. “We all die some time, and when we’re gone, we only leave behind memories and words, to be passed on by those who follow. We’re all just stories in the end, so… better make it a good one.”

“Do you truly believe that?”

Lance smiled, only half-faked, and figured he could toss in another quote. They were scant inches apart now, so it was really all or nothing if Lotor decided he’d had enough and tried to murder him or something. “Better to die as good fiction than live as bad, I think.”

Lotor drew back, almost pouting in his confusion. “What?”

“Think on it,” Lance said, and smiled wider as Blue sent him a sensation of nearness, of the remaining lions making their way down. “Maybe you’ll come out the other end wiser for it.”

“Pity we’re on opposing sides,” Lotor mused, lifting one hand to brush a thumb against Lance’s cheekbone. Lance leaned into Lotor’s palm, his smile fading into something he hoped looked almost predatory.

“Maybe if you do your assigned readings, we won’t have to be.” Lance couldn’t hear the whining of the engines, not with how soundproof he tried to make the building so as to avoid the sound of the wind, but he could feel how close the others were.

“I doubt that. Why not join me instead?”

“I’m not a big fan of, you know, colonization, imperialism, mass subjugation and torture of innocents, and so on.” Lance reached up and patted Lotor’s cheek, well aware of how condescending that must have seemed. “Those are all philosophies that only assholes have. Are you an asshole, Lotor? Or are you just a fuckboy?”

“…I have even less idea of what that means than any other word you’ve used thus far.”

“That’s fine,” Lance said, smiling. “Do your research and maybe you’ll figure it out, yeah? Until then…”

He surged forward, pressing his lips to Lotor’s and bringing one hand up to tangle in silky white hair. He waited past the gasps from the rescued aliens on the balcony and the soldiers on the edges of the room, waited for Lotor to stiffen up and relax against him, not quite melting into the kiss, but tilting his head and pressing back and—

Lance pulled his free hand out from behind himself, activating his bayard and taking a few massive steps back from Lotor and closer to his icy stairs. The drones and Galra soldiers at the edges of the room raised their weapons, shouting at Lance to stand down and drop his weapon. They seemed reluctant to shoot. Lotor swayed on the spot for a moment, looking confused and maybe a little dazed. He shook himself and looked down the barrel of the bayard, and barked out a laugh that actually sounded amused.

“Well, well, well. Ever a paladin, aren’t you?”

“Sorry, babe, but duty calls and whatnot. You know how it is.” Lance shifted his weight minutely, and several of the soldiers twitched. “Mind calling off the cannon fodder? Wouldn’t want to lose this perfect skin to an itchy trigger finger, now would we?”

“We most certainly wouldn’t,” Lotor said softly, head tilting. Lance kept his eyes trained on his enemy, no matter how tempted he was to watch that perfect hair slide and fall. “We seem to be at an impasse.”

“Well…” Lance stomped a foot, and the doors swung back open, Allura jumping through without warning and slamming a bolt of energy directly into Lotor, something that threw him back several feet (and closer to Lance), though it barely singed him. “Not quite.”

Lotor picked himself up slowly, raising one hand to swipe at the blood coming from a split in his lip. He chuckled. “I was right, then; ever the paladin.”

“Sorry, sweetheart, but as we humans love to say: all’s fair in love and war.” Lance pulled his lips back into something closer to a grimace than a grin. “I’m sure you’ll understand.”

“Of course… _darling_ ,” Lotor’s tone may have been mocking, but Lance was glad he’d taken the joking pet name as such. Lotor’s attention shifted, though, directly to Allura. “Princess.”

“Lotor,” she said stiffly.

“My mother hits harder than you do, and she’s as elderly as they come.”

“Lotor, I’ve _met_ your mother,” Allura sneered. “That’s not exactly an insult.”

“And, sorry to tell you this, but she’s kind of an evil bitch.” Lance called out. “Haggar and Zarkon both, just… wow, you got the absolute worst people in the universe as parents.”

Lotor shrugged. “It is what it is.”

“C’est la vie, carpe diem, and que será, será.”

“Stop trying to make yourself sound cool, Lance.” Keith yelled down.

“Buddy, I’m not just cool, I’m cooler than cool, I’m—”

“Fuck.” Keith’s mutter was barely audible over the blood rushing through Lance’s ears.

“—ice cold!”

Lance slammed his heel against the ground, and power surged through his ice. Drones were speared through, and Galra soldiers lost their weapons to the same, while thin, near-unbreakable rods stuck out from strategic places to render them immobile but unhurt.

Lotor remained untouched.

Lance could distantly hear Pidge’s voice chanting “Alright, alright, alright, alright.”

Lance fucking loved that kid.

“Anyway,” Lance said, trying to sound apologetic and not quite succeeding. “I’m sure you can understand if we want to evacuate whomever we can and just, you know, leave you here.”

“Absolutely,” Lotor sighed, shaking his head. “I suppose you’re the one that’s going to be responsible for… me.”

Lance figured it was an opportune moment for some more elevator eyes. “Well, while I’d love to be taking care of you in all _sorts_ of ways, I’m afraid I’m going to be your guard. Here to shoot you if you move and whatnot.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“As much as it will hurt me to destroy such beauty… you’re kind of a dick, Lotor. Like, serious fuckboy material here. Total douchebaggery. Utter assholeishness. What I’m saying is that if you weren’t so refined, _I’d probably be calling you Chad_.” Lance grinned as even Keith let out a snort of laughter at that one.

“Once again, I don’t know what it is that you speak of. However,” Lotor said, settling on the ground in a cross-legged position. “I am amenable to ceding this battle.”

“Wasn’t much of a battle,” Lance said. “Sure, there was fighting up in the air, which has clearly ended with your forces decimated and my lovely friends and I victorious, and even in the compound, but you and me? That thing with Allura? That wasn’t a battle, baby, that was…”

“Verbal foreplay?” Keith suggested, still hidden. Lance figured he was trying to keep Shiro out of sight for as long as possible. “Eye-fucking? A ridiculous amount of subpar flirting?”

“Can you, like, not?” Lance asked.

“Sorry, you’re right. Eye-fucking with you involved would probably mean someone’s eyelids getting _frozen shut_.”

“Haha, guess who’s getting his _door_ frozen shut tonight,” Lance grumbled. He didn’t move his eyes or his gun from Lotor, but it was a near thing. “You nearly freeze a guy’s tongue off with your dick _one time_ …”

“Bitch, it was more than once.”

“No, you only got stuck once! We did your stupid condom trick so you could suck me off without getting stuck the other times!”

“Lance!” Allura paused in her directions to Coran, Hunk, and Pidge through the comms. “We don’t need to hear about your… activities!”

“Oh, no, please _do_ continue.” Lotor grinned lasciviously at Lance. “I’m certainly getting plenty of information.”

“Lance!” Allura scolded.

“Princess, I’m not sure how to tell you this, but I really doubt he means information he can use against us.” Lance readjusted his grip on his bayard. “Like… that was probably Lotor’s way of saying he’s going to be using this to jerk off or something.”

“I wouldn’t be _nearly_ so crude as to—”

“And I am _never_ bringing up anything sexual in his presence again!” Keith said. “I don’t need to feature in Mr. Evil Jr’s sexual fantasies.”

“Ugh,” Lotor made a face. “As though I would imagine someone as irritable as _you_ in my bed, Halfling.”

“You’re mixed-species too!” Keith protested.

Lance almost turned to look at Keith in his disbelief. Almost. “Really? That’s what you’re concerned about?”

“Well, I’m glad he’s not jerking off to me, but did he really have to use _that_ to insult me?” Keith’s voice was getting farther away.

Lotor shrugged. “It was a little too easy, I’ll admit.”

“Oh, hush, you.”

“Lance, we’re done with the evacuation,” Allura said, gesturing for the door. “Let’s go.”

Lance circled Lotor carefully, weapon still trained on his person, until he made it to the doors.

“Until we meet again, Lance.”

“See ya, Lotor.”

Lance tapped a heel against the ground, and giant doors of ice slammed shut.

He booked it for Blue, even as the Castle ship revved up beside him.

o.o.o.o.o

They regrouped in the Castle after making it out into orbit, and were already several light years out when they all managed to make it to Red and Green’s shared hangar. The evacuees had all been sent to a large, comfortably furnished room by Coran in preparation for getting them where they needed to go, but there was still one person who hadn’t been taken care of.

Lance held his breath as Red lowered her head to the ground, and Keith came out, supporting Shiro.

Nobody moved for a moment, holding their breath like Shiro would disappear if they moved, now that the adrenaline wasn’t covering up the nerves.

“Shiro,” Allura finally said, taking a step forward. “You’re back.”

It was something that needed to be said, no matter how obvious.

Shiro opened his mouth, and…

“Would someone _please_ explain to me what the _actual fuck_ is going on?”

Hunk gasped. Pidge made a disbelieving noise, something like a snort.

“Oh my god, Space Dad cursed!”


	3. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Shiro gets an explanation and the authoress just kind of half-asses everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's four in the goddamn morning.

Lance sat in an armchair, hugging his knees and watching as Hunk and Allura wrapped Shiro in a blanket, sitting him down on the couch in the common area. The aliens from the facility, or _whatever_ that building had been, were all bundled away and taken care of, which meant it was time to face to music, bite the bullet, and any number of other turns of phrase that meant he had to deal.

“So,” Shiro said, eyes flicking from one person to the next. “What, exactly, happened while I was gone?”

“Lance has superpowers,” Keith summarized.

“Lance has _what_.”

“Lance is a Disney Princess,” Pidge said.

“Elsa, specifically,” Hunk added.

Shiro turned his gaze to Allura, a silent request for an answer that actually gave him something to work with.

“From what we understand,” Allura said. “The Blue Lion gave Lance the ability to use quintessence, specifically to interact with and create ice and snow, as she felt that humans are too fragile for Lance to be safe.”

“She thinks I’m too squishy,” Lance offered. “So… now I’m Elsa.”

He unwrapped one arm from around his knees and gestured, letting off a flurry. “Ta-da.”

Shiro, with some difficulty, pulled an arm out from the blanket cocoon and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay. You… have ice powers. And everything else I heard down there?”

“Like?” Pidge prompted.

“Something about an… ice dick?”

Lance groaned and threw himself back against the couch, snickers erupting from his _traitor teammates_. “It was an _accident_.”

“Lance has been having some trouble controlling his own body temperature,” Coran said, which was probably the most delicate way that could be phrased. “His body no longer thermoregulates at the same heat as is standard for a human, which has led to some… unfortunate occurrences.”

“Okay,” Shiro said, closing his eyes and breathing deep. “I’ll… leave that alone. Who was Lance talking to, back on the planet?”

“Prince Lotor, Zarkon and Haggar’s kid,” Pidge said. “He’s… weird. Probably hates Zarkon, but we can’t really tell. He likes flirting with Lance but I’m not sure how serious _that_ is, either.”

“It’s not,” Lance mumbled, throwing an arm over his eyes. “He’s part and parcel with a genocidal dictatorship. That’s _kind_ of a massive turn-off.”

“And we don’t know how old he is,” Hunk added.

Lance snapped his fingers and blindly pointed at Hunk with some finger guns. “Yeeeup.”

“Did I miss anything _else?_ ” Shiro asked, sounding very, very tired. Lance finally picked up his head and

“Allura piloted the Black Lion,” Keith said.

Shiro looked up at Keith, meeting his gaze and not… actually moving after that. The two of them stared at one another, having some kind of silent conversation that Lance didn’t bother trying to interpret. Shiro eventually closed his eyes and shook his head. “Okay, then. So Allura was the Black Paladin while I was… gone, Lance has superpowers, and Lance and Keith are apparently together?”

“It was just a hook-up,” Keith corrected.

“Several, actually, but yeah.” Lance nodded. “Not a relationship, or at least not that kind. No romance, just—”

“I get it,” Shiro said, cutting him off. “I’m not sure I want to hear more.”

“You don’t,” Pidge said. “Also, we introduced Allura and Coran to Disney movies to explain the Elsa references.”

“And everything else,” Hunk said.

“I get the feeling you’re avoiding something,” Shiro said drily.

Everyone looked around, as awkward and uncomfortable as Lance’s grandmother had been when he’d come out to the family.

(She’d done her best to understand, of course, but that didn’t negate the initial awkwardness.)

“Do you know what happened to _you?”_ Pidge asked carefully. “We didn’t have enough time to get the information before the base blew up.”

“You’d think they would have been more careful about not blowing up, considering how important Shiro is,” Lance muttered.

“I don’t,” Shiro said, shaking his head. “Everything between the battle and waking up in... Lance’s ice castle?”

“More of an ice barn, really,” Lance said quietly.

“In any case, I was unconscious for almost all of it, as far as I can tell. There are a few moments I can remember when the sedatives wore off for a few moments, but I’m pretty sure I spent almost all of that time in a medical coma.” Shiro ran a hand through his hair, staring at the floor. “I wish I could say I knew more, but I don’t.”

Lance considered that, as a pregnant silence filled the room, and then focused very, very hard. Spindly ice came together in his palm, and he had it twist and turn until the form was just perfect. He slid off the couch onto his knees and scooted forward until he was kneeling in front of Shiro, then held up the little ice sculpture to Shiro’s face.

Shiro stared, eyes wide. “What?”

“It’s a heckin’ good pupper,” Lance whispered, leaning forward as though conveying the secrets of the universe with that one line.

Shiro blinked, tilting back a little and swallowing. “It’s not going to… come to life or something, right?”

“No. I mean, probably not.” Lance frowned down at the sculpture. “I don’t really know the extent of my own powers. I hope not. What would we feed it?”

“Fucking hell,” Pidge groaned. “Why are our lives like this?”

“We could just blame Zarkon for everything,” Hunk said.

“It’s probably best if we do,” Allura agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't be continuing this series. Season 3 gave us a very different Lotor than I would have used, and I've gotten accustomed enough to canon Lotor that I no longer feel comfortable with the plotline I envisioned for the future of this series. I _may_ go back and write the Disney Movie sections, but that's about the most you can expect, really.
> 
> If you'd love to see more of Lance having superpowers and awkwardly doing things with them (including accidentally bringing to life an animal he made out of an element), then hop over to my other fic "Just a Little Death." It's a comedy that's basically canon + supernatural elements, is very long, and is very much about the world-building and character development, despite what most would assume the premise indicates.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr @phoenixyfriend. I'm going to foray into original fiction soon, so we'll see how that goes.


End file.
